This study investigates the compositional processes underlying the formal construction of the Sonata for Violin and Piano (1952) by Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya, examining contrast as a discursive engine within a musical language marked by aesthetic radicalism (Whittall apud Jeremiah-Foulds, 2015, p. 43). Drawing on both minimalist and maximalist aesthetics, the piece transcends stylistic boundaries and challenges notions such as “conformational” and “generative” form (Bonds apud Schmalfeldt, 2012, pp. 25–26). It has been identified as a representative case of Soviet modernism (Tishchenko apud Jeremiah-Foulds, 2015, p. 22). 

Goal: This paper analyzes how Ustvolskaya articulates the sonata form and a modern atonal musical language characterized by textural inflection and obsessive repetition of limited pitch-class sets. Moreover, the aim is to evaluate how this friction informs the formal identity of the work, particularly in relation to inherited sonata conventions and their subversion within a post-tonal and politically charged context. 

Method: The research employs a formal-analytical approach grounded in Hepokoski and Darcy's Sonata Theory, emphasizing their notion of rotational form as an ordering principle grounded in the dialogue between convention and deformation. Their reworking of Formenlehre allows for a more responsive analytical framework, one that shifts emphasis from tonal functionality to thematic processes.

Main Outcomes: The analysis reveals that the piece is structured around two contrasting thematic blocks: a martial section, built on a perfect fourth ostinato (ic5), and a lament theme based on minor thirds (ic3). These sections differ in texture, articulation, and instrumental protagonism, while establishing a logic of sustained contrast, tension, and refusal of synthesis. 

The opposition between the blocks invites a functional analogy with sonata form, especially in the articulation of thematic contrast and dynamic arches of tension. However, the formal process does not unfold according to classical paradigms: there are no developed transition zones or functional medial caesura; traditional development is replaced by textural intensification; and the recapitulation occurs via thematic inversion and expressive rarefaction. The piece ends in dissolution, through a ritualistic gesture of erasure.

The central hypothesis is that Ustvolskaya's sonata does not seek synthesis or formal integration, but rather operates through impasse as a compositional and poetic strategy, pointing toward a critical expansion of the sonata paradigm in the twentieth century.

Bibliography: 

BONDS, Mark Evan. Wordless Rhetoric: Musical Form and the Metaphor of the Oration. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991.

HEPOKOSKI, James ; DARCY, Warren. Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

JEREMIAH-FOULDS, Rachel C. Forging the “Lady's Hammer”: A Profile of Influence in the Life and Music of Galina Ustvolskaya, 2015, 344 p. Tese (Doutorado em Música). London, Goldsmith College, 2015. Disponível em: https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/16110. Acesso em: 07 set. 2025.

SCHMALFELDT, Janet. In the Process of Becoming: Analytic and Philosophical Perspectives on Form in Early Nineteenth-Century Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.